by Steve Berry
“I don’t know. I heard you’re easy.”
She popped him on the back of the head. “You wish.”
He faced her. “Here we are at a romantic four-star hotel. Last night we had a great date huddled in the freezing cold, then getting shot at. We’re really bonding.”
She smiled. “Don’t remind me. And by the way, love your subtlety with Scofield. Worked great. He warmed right up to you.”
“He’s an arrogant, self-absorbed know-it-all.”
“Who was there in 1971, and knows more than you and me.”
He plopped down onto a bright floral bedspread. The whole room looked like something out of a Southern Living magazine. Fine furnishings, elegant curtains, décor inspired by English and French manor houses. She actually would like to savor the deep tub. She hadn’t bathed since yesterday morning in Atlanta. Is this what her agents routinely experienced? Wasn’t she supposed to be in charge?
“Premier king room,” he said. “It’s all they had available. Its rate is way over government per diem but what the hell. You’re worth it.”
She sank into one of the upholstered club chairs and propped her feet on a matching footstool. “If you can handle all this togetherness, I can, too. I have a feeling we’re not going to get much sleep anyway.”
“He’s here,” Davis said. “I know it.”
She wasn’t so sure, but she could not deny a bad feeling swirling around in her stomach.
“Scofield is in the Wharton Suite on the sixth floor. He gets it every year,” Davis said.
“Desk clerk let all that slip?”
He nodded. “She doesn’t like Scofield, either.”
Davis fished the conference pamphlet from his pocket. “He’s leading a tour of the Biltmore mansion in a little while. Then, tomorrow morning, he’s going boar hunting.”
“If our man’s here, that’s plenty of opportunities for him to make a move, not counting the time tonight in the hotel room.”
She watched Davis’ face. Usually its features never gave away a thing, but the mask had faded. He was anxious. She felt a dark reluctance mingling with an intense curiosity, so she asked, “What are you going to do when you finally find him?”
“Kill him.”
“That would be murder.”
“Maybe. But I doubt our man will go down without a fight.”
“You loved her that much?”
“Men shouldn’t hit women.”
She wondered who he was talking to. Her? Millicent? Ramsey?
“I couldn’t do anything before,” he said. “I can now.” His face clouded over once again, belying all emotion. “Now tell me what the president didn’t want me to know.”
She’d been waiting for him to ask. “It’s about your co-worker.” She told him where Diane McCoy had gone. “He trusts you, Edwin. More than you know.” She saw he caught what she hadn’t said. Don’t let him down.
“I won’t disappoint him.”
“You can’t kill this man, Edwin. We need him alive, to get Ramsey. Otherwise the real problem walks.”
“I know.” Defeat laced his voice.
He stood.
“We need to go.”
They’d stopped by the registration desk and signed up for the remainder of the conference before coming upstairs, obtaining two tickets for the candlelight tour.
“We have to stay close to Scofield,” he said. “Whether he likes it or not.”
Charlie Smith entered the Biltmore mansion, following the private tour inside. When he’d registered for the Ancient Mysteries Revealed Conference under another name, he’d been presented a ticket for the event. A little quick reading in the inn’s gift shop informed him that from early November until New Year’s the mansion offered so-called magical evenings where visitors could enjoy the château filled with candlelight, blazing fireplaces, holiday decorations, and live musical performances. Entry times were reserved, and tonight’s was extra special since it was the last tour of the day, open only for conference attendees.
They’d been ferried from the inn in two Biltmore buses—about eighty people, he estimated. He was dressed like the others, winter colors, wool coat, dark shoes. On the trip over he’d struck up a conversation about Star Trek with another attendee. They’d discussed which series they liked best, he arguing that Enterprise was by far superior, though his listener had preferred Voyager.
“Everyone,” Scofield was saying, as they stood in the frigid night before the main doors, “follow me. You’re in for a real treat.”
The crowd entered through an elaborate iron grille. He’d read that each room inside would be decorated for Christmas, as George Vanderbilt had done, starting in 1885 when the estate was first opened.
He was looking forward to the spectacles.
Both the house.
And his own.
Malone came awake. Christl slept beside him, her naked body against his. He glanced at his watch. 12:35 AM. Another day—Friday, December 14—had started.
He’d been asleep two hours.
A warm pulse of satisfaction flowed through him.
He hadn’t done that in awhile.
Afterward, rest had come in a no-man’s-land of a twilight where detailed images roamed his restless mind.
Like the framed drawing hanging one floor below.
Of the church, from 1772.
Odd the way a solution had materialized, the answer laid out in his head like an open-faced hand of solitaire. It had happened that way two years ago. At Cassiopeia Vitt’s château. He thought about Cassiopeia. Her visits of late had been few and far between, and she was God knew where. In Aachen he’d thought about calling her for help, but decided this fight was his alone. He lay still and wondered about the myriad choices life offered. The swiftness of his decision regarding Christl’s advances worked his nerves.
But at least something more had come of it.
Charlemagne’s pursuit.
He now knew the end.
SIXTY-SIX
ASHEVILLE
Stephanie and Davis followed the tour into Biltmore’s grand entrance hall amid soaring walls and limestone arches. To her right, in a glass-roofed winter garden, a parade of white poinsettias encircled a marble-and-bronze fountain. The warm air smelled of fresh greenery and cinnamon.
A woman on the bus ride over had told them that the candlelight tour was billed as an old-fashioned festival of lights, decorations in a grand regal style, a Victorian picture postcard come to life. And true to the billing, a choir sung carols from some far-off room. With no coat check Stephanie left hers unbuttoned as they lingered at the back of the group, staying out of the way of Scofield, who seemed to relish his role as host.
“We have the house to ourselves,” the professor said. “This is a tradition for the conference. Two hundred fifty rooms, thirty-four bedrooms, forty-three baths, sixty-five fireplaces, three kitchens, and an indoor swimming pool. Amazing I remember all that.” He laughed at his own quip. “I’ll escort you through and point out some of the interesting tidbits. We’ll finish back here and then you’re free to roam for another half hour or so before the buses return us to the inn.” He paused. “Shall we?”
Scofield led the crowd into a long gallery, maybe ninety feet, lined with silk and wool tapestries that he explained were woven in Belgium around 1530.
They visited the gorgeous library with its twenty-three thousand books and Venetian ceiling, then the music room with a spectacular Dürer print. Finally, they entered an imposing banquet hall with more Flemish tapestries, a pipe organ, and a massive oak dining table that seated—she counted—sixty-four. Candlelight, firelight, and twinkling tree lights provided all of the illumination.
“The largest room in the house,” Scofield announced in the banquet hall. “Seventy-two feet long, forty-two feet wide, crowned seventy feet up by a barrel vault.”
An enormous Douglas fir, which stretched halfway to the ceiling, was trimmed with toys, ornaments, dried flowers, gold beads, angels,
velvet, and lace. Festive music from an organ filled the hall with yuletide cheer.
She noticed Davis retreating toward the dining table, so she drifted his way and whispered, “What is it?”
He pointed to the triple fireplace, flanked with armor, as if admiring it, and said to her, “There’s a guy, short and thin, navy chinos, canvas shirt, barn coat with a corduroy collar. Behind us.”
She knew not to turn and look, so she concentrated on the fireplace and its high-relief overmantel, which looked like something from a Greek temple.
“He’s been watching Scofield.”
“Everybody’s been doing that.”
“He hasn’t spoken to a soul, and twice he’s checked out the windows. I made eye contact once, just to see what would happen, and he turned away. He’s too fidgety for me.”
She pointed to more decorations that adorned the massive bronze chandeliers overhead. Pennants hung high around the room, replicas of flags, she heard Scofield say, from the American Revolution for the original thirteen colonies.
“You have no idea, right?” she asked.
“Call it a feeling. He’s checking the windows again. Don’t you come for the house tour? Not what’s outside.”
“You mind if I see for myself?” she asked.
“Be my guest.”
Davis continued to gawk at the hall as she casually stepped across the hardwood floor toward the Christmas tree, where the thin man in chinos stood near a group. She noticed nothing threatening, only that he seemed to pay Scofield a lot of attention, though their host was engaged in a robust conversation with some of the others.
She watched as he retreated from the aromatic tree and casually walked toward a doorway, where he tossed something into a small trash can then left, entering the next room.
She lingered a moment and followed, peering around the doorway.
Chinos wandered through a masculine billiard room that resembled a nineteenth-century gentleman’s club with rich oak paneling, ornamental plaster ceiling, and deep-hued Oriental carpets. He was examining framed prints on the wall—but not all that carefully, she noted.
She quickly gazed into the trash can and spotted something on top. She bent down, retrieved it, then retreated into the banquet hall.
She noticed what she held.
Matches, from a Ruth’s Chris steakhouse.
In Charlotte, North Carolina.
Malone, no longer capable of sleep, his mind racing, slipped from beneath the heavy duvet and rose from the bed. He needed to walk downstairs and study the framed print one more time.
Christl awoke. “Where are you going?”
He retrieved his pants from the floor. “To see if I’m right.”
“You’ve realized something?” She sat up and switched on the light beside the bed. “What is it?”
She seemed utterly comfortable naked, and he was utterly comfortable staring at her. He zipped his pants and slipped on his shirt, not worrying about shoes.
“Hold up,” she said, rising and finding her clothes.
Downstairs was dimly lit by two lamps and the still-burning embers from the hearth. Nobody staffed the check-in desk, and he heard no sounds from the restaurant. He found the print on the wall and clicked on another lamp.
“That’s from 1772. The church was obviously in better shape then. See anything?”
He watched as she studied the drawing.
“The windows were intact. Stained glass. Statues. The grilles around the altar seem Carolingian. Like in Aachen.”
“That’s not it.”
He was enjoying this—finally being a step ahead of her. He admired her narrow waist, trim hips, and the close curls of her long blond hair. She hadn’t tucked in her shirt so he caught the curve of her bare spine as she reached with one arm and traced the drawing’s outline on the glass.
She turned toward him. “The floor.”
Her pale brown eyes glowed.
“Tell me,” he said.
“There’s a design. It’s hard to see, but it’s there.”
She was right. The print was an angled view, geared more for the towering heights of the walls and arches than the floor. But he’d noticed it earlier. Dark lines streaked through lighter slabs, a square enclosing another square, enclosing still another in a familiar pattern.
“It’s a Nine Men’s Morris board,” he said. “We can’t know for sure until we go look, but I think that’s what that floor once depicted.”
“That’s going to be hard to determine,” she said. “I crawled across it. It’s barely there anymore.”
“Part of your performance?”
“Mother’s idea. Not mine.”
“And we can’t tell Mother no, can we?”
A smile frayed the edges of her thin lips. “No, we can’t.”
“But only those who appreciate the throne of Solomon and Roman frivolity shall find their way to heaven,” he said.
“A Nine Men’s Morris board on the throne in Aachen and one here.”
“Einhard built this church,” he said. “He also, years later, fashioned the pursuit using the chapel in Aachen and this place as reference points. Apparently, the throne was in the Aachen chapel by then. Your grandfather made the connection, so can we.” He pointed. “Look in the lower right corner. On the floor, near the center of the nave, around which the Nine Men’s Morris board would spread. What do you see?”
She studied the drawing. “There’s something etched into the floor. Hard to tell. The lines are garbled. Look’s like a tiny cross with letters. An R and an L, but the rest is meshed together.”
He saw recognition dawn within her as she visualized entirely what may have once been there.
“It’s part of Charlemagne’s signature,” she said.
“Hard to say for sure, but there’s only one way to find out.”
SIXTY-SEVEN
ASHEVILLE
Stephanie found Davis and showed him the matches.
“That’s too damn many coincidences for me,” he said. “He’s not part of this conference. He’s scoping out his target.”
Their killer was certainly cocky and confident. Being here, out in the open, with no one knowing who he was would certainly appeal to a daring personality. After all, over the past forty-eight hours he’d managed to stealthily murder at least three people.
Still.
Davis marched away.
“Edwin.”
He kept going, heading for the billiard room. The rest of the tour was scattered throughout the banquet hall, Scofield starting to herd them in Chinos’ direction.
She shook her head and followed.
Davis was headed around the gaming tables toward where Chinos stood, near a pine-garland-decorated fireplace and a bearskin rug that lay across the wood floor. A few others from the tour were already in the room. The rest would be arriving shortly.
“Excuse me,” Davis said. “You.”
Chinos turned, saw who was speaking to him, and drew back.
“I need to talk to you,” Davis said in a firm voice.
Chinos lunged forward and pushed Davis aside. His right hand slipped beneath his unbuttoned coat.
“Edwin,” she hollered.
Davis apparently saw it, too, and dove beneath one of the billiard tables.
She found her gun, leveled the weapon, and yelled, “Stop.”
The others in the room saw her weapon.
A woman screamed.
Chinos fled out an open doorway.
Davis sprang to his feet and rushed after him.
Malone and Christl left the hotel. Silence claimed the cold, clear air. Every star glowed down with an improbable brightness, suffusing Ossau with a colorless light.
Christl had found two flashlights behind the reception desk. Though he was working in a fog of exhaustion, a blur of combative thoughts had roused his vitality. He’d just made love to a beautiful woman whom, on the one hand, he did not trust and, on the other, he could not resist.
Christl had swept her hair up from her neck and clipped the curls high on her head, a few tendrils escaping and framing her soft face. Shadows played over the rough ground. The dry air carried the scent of smoke. They trudged up the snowy inclined path with heavy footsteps, stopping at the monastery’s gate. He noticed that Henn, who’d cleaned up the earlier mess, had repositioned the snipped chain so that it appeared as if the gate was locked.
He freed the chain and they entered.
A dark silence, unbroken by the night or the ages, loomed everywhere. They used the flashlights and negotiated dark passages through the cloister to the church. He felt like he was walking inside a chest freezer, the parched air chapping his lips.
He hadn’t really noticed the flooring earlier, but he now searched the moss-grown pavement with his light. The masonry was rude and wide-jointed, many of the stones either cracked into pieces or missing, leaving frozen, rock-hard earth exposed. Apprehension crept into his bones. He’d brought the gun and spare magazines, just in case.
“See,” he said. “There’s a pattern. Hard to see with what little remains.” He glanced up to the choir, where Isabel and Henn had appeared. “Come on.”
He found the stairway and they climbed. The view from up high helped. Together they saw that the floor, if all there, would have formed a Nine Men’s Morris board.
He stopped his beam at what he estimated would have been the board’s center. “Einhard was precise, I’ll give him that. It’s in the middle of the nave.”
“It’s exciting,” she said. “This is exactly what Grandfather did.”
“So let’s get down there and see if there’s anything to find.”
“All of you, listen to me,” Stephanie said, trying to regain control. Heads turned and a quick silence swept the room.
Scofield rushed in from the banquet hall. “What’s happening here?”
“Dr. Scofield, take all of these people back to the main entrance. There’ll be security there. Tour’s over.”
She still held the gun, which seem to add an extra aura of authority to her command. But she couldn’t wait around to see if Scofield obeyed.